When the fighting was done, he pulled me into his arms. His heart beating in his words, he whispered, “You’re okay?” I think that might have been it—the moment I fell in love with him.

Later, out in the desert, in the quiet night, I said, “You could have died.” He took me in his arms, held me close, looked down into my eyes. “Nothing will ever get past me,” he said. “You’re my Pack.” Then he pressed his lips to mine and I wrapped my arms around him and hoped the moment would last forever.

Now, when he lays his hands on mine and holds me back, or gently pulls me aside so he can go before me on the dangerous path we’re on, my heart jumps; I taste his lips on mine, and I remember that I’m his Pack and he’s my Wulf.

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf

In the dream, I stood atop a great mountain, a battlefield, carpeted with broken bodies. I went from soldier to soldier, pressing a golden elixir to their lips. Even those who looked broken and dead raised their heads, drank. The moon was always full, shining a pitiless silver light on my shoulders.

First the elixir turned their lips gold, then their faces turned silver in the moonlight, full of hope. But then the dream turns on me. I draw back in horror. The thing that was once my soldier rises, pushing himself up with stiff limbs, and, on legs like wooden scissors, arms outs, fingers bent into claws, he comes for me.

From all around, I hear low animal growls of other men rising, until I am surrounded by them, close enough to smell their rotting flesh.

When the dream rises in my thoughts, when those dead soldiers, rotten and snarling creep into my thoughts, I go down and visit my boys. I walk among them, watch them sleep, see them safe, untouched by the horrors of this world.

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf

This is a strange world. There is rain. There are clouds. I have seen storms. I have seen humans riding on machines with only two wheels. I ask why they do not fall over. My brothers laugh, and give me the smallest share of meat from the hunt. Secretly, I think they don’t know the riddle of the two wheeled machines.

Tonight when we rested in our hiding cave, I saw an impossible thing. A machine flew through the sky, between the stars. Wulfs have good seeing, even at night. This was shaped like a bird, but it gleamed in starlight; metal.

Who are these humans that can build such machines? Why are we betraying the Pack to rise against creatures who cannot walk on four legs, and grow old quickly, but who build machines that fly?

I do not ask these things. My brothers would laugh, or cuff my ears. I am the smallest, but I know a word, a silent word that all of us are too afraid to speak: traitor.

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf

Now that I have Rafe, it’s different. Even with all that’s happened, when the night comes, Vaughn lets us go for walks with only Tynan for protection. I tried to argue that I could guard Rafe alone. No one defies or questions my brother in public. We were alone when I asked. Rafe was sleeping. My brother looked at me across the fire pit and said quietly, “You’re the Wulf. He’s your Pack. What if you’re wrong?”

After that, I stopped asking. Now, when I look out into the dark, it’s not the same anymore. The night—even full of the scent of prey—is dangerous. Vaughn is right. I’m the Wulf and Rafe is my Pack. This is all so new. I love Rafe enough to die for him, but what if that isn’t enough?

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf

This is an old, outdated way of thinking. The new world I am building, a world where the conquered will bow before their conquerors, will demolish such antiquated ideas as virtue, honor, compassion. These are the tools of the weak, the unfortunate.

I shall build a world where any Dead Heart willing to serve my empire shall be given a key to such treasure, it lies beyond the imaginings of this world. I am now choosing the Thirteen, whose superhuman strength, born of an un-beating heart, will stand as the Thirteen Pillars of the new Empire, my Empire.

The Thirteen will not crush opposition, for that would show another weakness: mercy. They will annihilate any who stand against me, and be loyal to me for all time.

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf

But then he took me in his arms and kissed me, and I stopped thinking about anything except how strong his arms felt around me and how good his lips felt on mine and the only question I had was—could this go on forever?

It would have if Kayne hadn’t let me go. I didn’t say anything. Didn’t say how much I wanted him, how desperately I needed him to tell me he’d hold me forever, if that was what I wanted.

Vaughn came back, and we got moving. Sometime in the night, my head on Kayne’s hard chest, I drifted toward sleep. Just before I was gone all the way, Kayne caressed my face, whispered, “to the last.”

It was so quiet, I could have dreamed it. But I didn’t.

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf

Later, deep in the night, amidst the groans and cries of the dying, by the light of a single lantern, I wrote my own letters, published my own hopes, all the while, knowing the unspeakable truth.

They were letters from the dead. All outgoing mail had been stopped weeks before. If the words of the dying reached the ears of the living, it was all too easy to imagine panicked mothers, desperate fathers, inconsolable wives, descending on a place where Death reigned, eager to save those they loved.

To this day, I remember the long nights I spent, a living ghost among the dying, hunched over my notepad, the lantern’s yellow light gleaming off my glasses, writing letters to a woman I would never see again in this life.

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf

The desert smells of dead things. The sand is dry, no water. Our fur dries in the heat, and we must spend nights in caves that have no fires.

At night, when the others sleep, I go to the mouth of the cave and look out. The stars are different in this world. They have different shapes. I want to know the stories of these strange star shapes, but my brothers are all worried about what they have done. I have done it too. If we are found, we will all die for it.

I lay down there, at the mouth of the cave, look up at the stars of this world, and I am afraid. My brothers know many things. But there is one thing they don’t know about me.

If I have the chance to do it without dying, I will leave them.

We are running under dark skies. We are doing a bad thing. A very bad thing.

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf

Kayne’s the first in our line to grow up like he did, by my side. My father sent me to a Protector after he chose me to be Alpha. I was a little more than a pup. Next time I saw him, he was dying.

I was on Death Watch. I’d laid by his side for days. That night it was cold in the Haunt. Winter had come. My father woke me up. He was always short with words, spent them like they were gold coins. “The choice is yours,” he told me. “But if it were mine, I would choose Kayne. Do as Zagrail once did; keep him near you. Let him always know your scent.”

I don’t know if those were the last words he spoke, but they were the last ones I heard. After his death, I heard rumors about my older brothers rising against me. I did what I was bound by my honor to do as Alpha Wulf.

Kayne’s known my scent since he was a pup. I’ve never sent him away. I keep him near me all the time. I’m his world, his God; and he’s afraid of me.

If I knew a different way, I’d do it.

So I steal time, read scrolls from the Ones Before, and be what I can be to my brother and to the Pack.

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf

I still don’t know if this is right. I don’t know about this whole Wulf thing, and Kayne and me. He’s the most amazing guy, except he’s a Wulf. Most times, I tell myself it’s not real, and soon he’ll come to his senses, and it’ll be over.

But I only think that when we’re not together. It’s all so weird, like nothing I ever felt before. When I’m with him, even if it’s just driving down a desert road, he makes me feel like nothing in the world matters to him more than me.

This is like some amazing adventure that doesn’t feel like it’ll ever end. I’m not sure how we’re going to do this, me and Kayne. He’s becoming my world. He’s turning into the only hope I have.

If things keep going the way they are, Kayne and the Wulfs may be the only hope any of us have. All I wanted was to save my mom. I was ready to give anything.

For Kayne, I’ll give even more.

h. Raven

Raven’s Bookshelf